Radial seals are well known in the art. These seals have many different shapes and styles to fit various applications. Many of these seals have a flexible lip extending from a body portion and require special springs and/or elastomeric members to hold the lip against the mating shaft or seal. Several of these seal designs have metal supports bonded to the elastomeric seal and are normally used to provide a member that can be pressed into a counter-bore or other types of cavities. One of the problems associated with these seals having metal supports is that the assembler will many times use a hammer, without a special seal driver, to press the seal into its installed position. This can result in the metal support being damaged due to the blows from the hammer. Some of these seals also have a second sealing surface that is spaced from the flexible lip. The second sealing surface needs to provide a secondary seal in the event there is some leakage in the lip seal. Known lip type seals having two different sealing surfaces (lips) either provide too much contact force on the surface of the installed shaft (rod) or not enough force. Too much contact force on the surface of the shaft (rod) results in a slight groove or recess being created thereon by wear between the sealing lips and the shaft (rod). Naturally, if the contact force is too small, the fluid being contained therein may leak out.
The present invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems as set forth above.